Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Being Human (US) Season 4, Episode 2: That Time of the Month

Sad music montage: Aidan hugs Suzanna on the doorstep
because she can’t come in even when he invites her – she burns when she tries.
Sally expositions her new shiny powers to Josh the wolf (pyro thing and
extra-dimensional child murder witnessing. Not the greatest skill set). Josh
gets all agitated that she’s there and
Nora comes running to calm him down.

She asks Sally not to hang around the wolf cage because
when Josh gets excited he hurts himself on the silver cage; Nora also shifts to
despair, they’ve been trying to bring Josh back for three months and have achieved
nothing. Sally thinks she can help Josh but Nora has little hope and a whole
lot of fear. But, as Sally points out, what alternative do they have?

Aidan and Suzanna talk and try to adapt – firstly to both
of them in modern clothes (I like this touch – if she’s been remembering him in
18th century clothes, it’s a jarring mental image to see him in a
leather jacket and jeans. Or her in trousers). But why is Suzanna not dead? Flashback
time to her drowning – only this time she’s pulled out of the water by
Bishop. Yes, the vampire who made Aidan also made Suzanna – and she wasn’t especially
thrilled by this, especially since her experience with Aidan showed how much he
loathed what he was. She’s also not eager to feed. Bishop, you sure can pick ‘em

Sally has another vision, of a ruined house (Donna’s I
believe) she explores while we keep cutting to her as she would appear to
someone else (who could see ghosts), miming her actions on an empty green lawn.
She finds a grimoire, the writing only appearing when she touches it – and yes,
she can touch and lift it.

In the present, Aidan has some angst for Suzanna because
he abandoned their child – but at least she looked him up; he died a
grandfather which causes Aidan to have to sit down in shock at his offspring’s
fertility. At this less than ideal moment, Sally arrives to show off her
book-holding skills and mocking Suzanna before she realises she can see Aidan.
Aidan only introduces her as a friend – to which Sally instantly dismisses her
and teleports to the woods, expecting Aidan to follow.

He does and he’s very very wary of Sally leaping into
magic with so little experience and so much confidence (but that’s kind of
Sally’s thing – she is extremely confident, she does leap in without checking
and she’s not even slightly cautious). Aidan is pretty scathing of Sally’s
talents (and the comments about the hair and teeth were unnecessary. The
comments about Sally biting his stomach of is much more to the point). They
both appeal to Nora to make the decision: Sally again pointing out that they
don’t have much choice while Aidan very much afraid of the side effects. Nora
sides with Sally.

Much snark and bickering as they prepare the ritual,
gather what they need and Sally reveals they need menstrual blood (quickly
driving Aidan from the scene. Aidan, you drink blood, you cannot possibly be
squeamish about periods). Next awkward moment – Aidan knows Nora’s on her time
of the month because he can actually smell it much to just about everyone’s
mutual horror and embarrassment (it has to be noted that their happy share
calendar we saw last week did include Nora’s notes of when her period was) and
the realisation that Aidan has ALWAYS known. Aidan walks off just chanting “no
no no no no” while Nora takes care of that business.

Time for the actual ritual which produces shiny fire –
and conjures a knife that Sally can hold. She teleports to Josh and explains
the part she didn’t mention before – the dagger has to go into Josh’s heart.
Nora goes into the cage, relying on Josh’s trust to be able to place the dagger
– then she throws it aside when Josh growls (I don’t think this is cowardice so
much as showing suddenly angry wolf Josh that she’s not a threat), she runs to
the back of the cage, Josh turns and Aidan comes up behind him and grabs the
knife – and stabs him.

And Josh falls. Apparently dead. Nora and Aidan are
horrified – but Sally disappears to her parallel dimension again. This time to
their house, seven hours after Josh and Aidan moved in with Aidan and Josh
snarking perfectly about cleaning (they do snark so well together); her past
self watching from the stairs. Sally realises she’s time travelling (because
the hints are so subtle).

Back in the present, Aidan gears up for a Hootie moment –
when a hand pushes out of Josh-wolf’s mouth. That’s enough to freak out even a
vampire. They cut the wolf open and pull out a bloodstained and rather traumatised
Josh.

Everyone back to the house (except the time travelling
Sally) and Nora aims for normality while Josh stares, traumatised, into space.
And Sally re-appears – she’s worried because the spell wasn’t finished, pulling
Josh out was a bad idea; she’s now having her own worries while Nora has jumped
on the “yay magic” train.

Meanwhile Aidan goes to meet Susanna in her hotel – she invites him in, but
hides the giant sharpened wooden cross she’s carrying behind her back. Maybe it
was just lying around? Aidan wants to know why Suzanna didn’t try to get in
touch: she blames Bishop. He was apparently “brutal” to her (which implies a
lot of horror) and that he found Suzanna unworthy for his “son” – while clearly
valuing a son far more than a daughter. She came back when Aidan killed Bishop.

Of course, the question is what do they do now (“how many brunches does it take
for two people to catch up on two centuries?” - a great line) to which she
suggests leaving the past behind them and he should enjoy what he has

So he goes home – and finds Kat in his bed, waiting in lingerie. He seems to
jump on her “I love you” from the last episode and say how happy he is with
her, how much he loves their ordinary life (remember that the whole premise of
Being Human is that these three supernaturals are seeking ordinary) and he
tells her he loves her.

Suzanna, at her hotel, gets ready for bed and has her own
flashback; hungry, past Suzanna hallucinates Aidan urging her to feed and,
unable to stop, she does. In the present, Suzanna unwraps a whip and whips her
own back while she remembers her first feed – on Isaac, her own son. Guess he
never became a grandfather.

Bishop came to her and refuses to turn Isaac – trapping him
as a child would be wrong. He refuses to kill her, believing there is nothing
but damnation after death. His plans frustrated, he tells Suzanna to leave – he
sees great things in Aidan and would be happy to have them together, but doesn’t
think Aidan would deal well learning Suzanna had eaten their child. He demands
she keeps it secret for Aidan’s sake.

Everyone prepares for bed and Sally and Josh talk and
Sally drawing on her own experiences to say how everyone understands if it
takes Josh a little while to get back together. When he’s left alone, it’s
clear Josh is having some problems – and his eyes turn wolfy-yellow.

In many ways, Sally and Aidan’s arguments pretty much sum
up their characters for the last 3 seasons. Aidan is avoidant with problems. He
denies them, he sticks his head in the sand, he pretends they aren’t happening
until he’s forced to confront them – usually in a way that prevents him from
being actually prepared, having a back up plan or any idea of what to do; it
has made him easy to manipulate in the past and very good at problems becoming
overwhelming because he simply won’t deal with them (the number of times he’s
not fed when he should have alone). While Sally leaps – always leaps. She doesn’t
always look and she rarely has a plan, but she has immense confidence in her
capabilities, a desire to fix things – anything – and a belief that she CAN fix
them.

Though I think both personalities are exaggerated a
little here. Aidan’s utter revulsion at magic when clearly only magic will cure
Josh is excessive. At the same time, Sally deciding to run off with
heart-stabbing and not even tell the others is beyond the recklessness she’s
shown before; apart from anything else it shows too little respect for Nora and
Aidan.

Aidan visiting Susanna – part of me thinks that obviously
his centuries dead wife is now alive, all that guilt and pain he’s carrying can
be addressed, of course he’d go see her. But part of me also thinks that Josh
has just been rescued from wolfiness – and Aidan is LEAVING at that point?

Suzanna encouraging the past to be put behind them makes
a lot of sense though and I like the depth of it, that they don’t just fall
into love straight away. They knew each other for, what? 10 years? Over 200
years ago – they must be very very different people now from what they were
when they married; they couldn’t pick up where they left off, they’ve lived
different lives since then.

Aidan tells Kat he loves her. Hmmm. Ok it’s a great scene
and I love the way it draws in to the central premise of the show. But the
timing is awful. He says this after going to Suzanna and she, effectively,
shutting him down. Alright he considered a platonic relationship with Suzanna
not love (though that felt like fishing), but it feels a little like Kat was
second choice. Maybe if there had been more space between Suzanna saying no and
Aidan coming to terms with the shadow he has been chasing and accepting that,
yes, he likes what he has and loves now – it would work. But I think it needed
that introspection, that acknowledgement that Suzanna is no longer HIS Suzanna
and that he loves his life and Kat in it rather than the suggestion of a
consolation prize.

Suzanna promises to be a very complicated character – but with vast hootie
potential.